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Philips the inventor of the CD, is now one of the inventors of DVD. DVD is an industry standard, announced in November 1995 and backed by major players in the CE, IT and movie industry. To produce DVD players, one needs to license a range of patents, owned by different companies. A number of these companies (Philips, Sony, Matsushita and Toshiba) have decided to license the necessary patents through one licensing agent. Philips has been selected to take up this administrative role.